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4 unusual facts about tax protester arguments


Tax protester arguments

Some tax protesters may cite what they believe is evidence that the Sixteenth Amendment to the Constitution (removing any apportionment requirement for income taxes) was never "properly ratified" or that it was properly ratified but does not permit the taxation of individual income, or particular forms of individual income.

Some protesters have claimed that statutes enacted by the United States Congress pursuant to its constitutional taxing power are defective, invalid (see e.g., the Irwin Schiff quote below), or that the statutes are misapplied by the Internal Revenue Service (IRS), the courts, lawyers, CPAs, law professors, and legal experts generally, and that the tax "protesters" are not liable for tax under the law (see below).

Additionally, the Supreme Court's opinion in Flora v. United States, 362 U.S. 145, 176 (1960), is often quoted for the proposition that "our system of taxation is based upon voluntary assessment and payment, not upon distraint."

Arguments made by tax protesters generally deal with the U.S. federal income tax and not with other taxes such as the gift tax, estate tax, sales tax, and property tax (although some tax protesters have attacked the last category under allodial title claims).


Kent Dawson

Judge Dawson rejected one of Schiff's common tax protester arguments that no law imposes a liability on an individual for income taxes, instructing the jury that sections 1, 61, 62 and 6012 of the Internal Revenue Code "working together, make an individual liable for income taxes".


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